As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
As processors, graphics cards, random access memory (RAM) and other components in information handling systems have increased in clock speed and power consumption, the amount of heat produced by such components as a side-effect of normal operation has also increased. Often, the temperatures of these components need to be kept within a reasonable range to prevent overheating, instability, malfunction and damage leading to a shortened component lifespan. Accordingly, thermal management systems including air movers (e.g., cooling fans and blowers) have often been used in information handling systems to cool information handling systems and their components. Various input parameters to a thermal management system, such as measurements from temperature sensors and inventories of information handling system components are often utilized by thermal management systems to control air movers and/or throttle power consumption of components in order to provide adequate cooling of components.
In traditional thermal control systems for information handling systems, little or no provisions are present for optimizing thermal control in response to installation of upgraded fans. For example, when a fan is upgraded to a new fan having greater airflow performance, existing approaches do not include a mechanism for communicating the increased performance to a thermal control system of the information handling system. Accordingly, ambient temperature limits, system power capping limits, fan curves (e.g., pulse-width-modulation versus ambient temperature curves) and other thermal control parameters may not be updated in response to addition of the higher-performance fan unless such parameters are updated via a firmware update of the thermal control system or manual entering of new control parameters.